Knox Guilty, So Now For The Extradition

Now that the Italian court has upheld the guilty verdicts on American Amanda Knox for killing British student Meredith Kercher in 2007, all eyes are on what America will do next with regards to the extradition of the 26 year old to serve her sentence.
Before the verdict Knox said that she would expect the Italian government to approach the US government with a request for her extradition and that she hoped that her government would refuse to extradite her.
'I'm definitely not going back to Italy willingly. They'll have to catch me and pull me back kicking and screaming'.
If President Obama's government decide against extraditing Knox as expected in defiance of the extradition treaty between the two countries, she would be effectively trapped in the USA as she would face arrest and deportation to Italy as most countries are bound to intervene under the rules of the extradition that Italy has with most of the rest of the World, including Canada.
Some US lawyers have argued that having been acquitted in 2011, she would be protected under the US Constitution from being tried twice for the same charge yet this argument has been dismissed as the US-Italy extradition treaty only protects Americans from extradition to face prosecution again in Italy for an offence that has already been dealt with by the US legal system.
President Obama is sure to come under pressure to turn down any extradition request however it would need to weigh this against the blow to co-operation from other Governments when it makes future extradition requests especially in such a high profile case as this.
After the Spying scandal Americas reputation is in the bin so what it does now regarding Amanda Knox could go some way to fixing it or could drive it even further down.

New Flag For New Zealand

The New Zealander's are so fed up with everything thinking that their flag is the Australian flag that they are considering replacing it and the most popular choice is a silver fern leaf on a black background.
The New Zealand Flag is a few stars on a blue background with a Union Flag in the corner while the Australian one is a blue background with a Union Flag in the corner and a few stars but because foreigners keep confusing the two for some reason, New Zealand are to hold a referendum on what to replace the design with.
Judging by the reaction from excited Kiwi's on the internet, the black flag with the silver fern is very popular with more than few mentions of it looking like a bad ass Pirate flag which makes me wonder what sort of pirates books they read as kids if a bit of plant rather than a skull and cross-bones chilled the bones of their sailors.
Black flags are also associated with funerals and mourning and a cursory glance through the big book of flags doesn't show up one single black flag so it would be a unique choice. 
I do feel though that a flag should represent the country and fair play to New Zealand if it wants to change its flag to distance itself from its Antipodean neighbours but we all know that as soon as a New Zealander opens their mouths, we will just assume they are Australian anyway no matter what flag they have.

The Dangers Of E-Cigarettes

The use of e-cigarettes has become more and more popular recently and there are two valid arguments that i, an e-cigarette user, find hard to argue against.
The first is that the e-cigarette companies are aiming their wares at the under 18 market. Hard to argue when you see flavours such as ice cream, bubble gum and candy floss.
The second is that the 'safe' aspect of vaping will tempt people to try smoking who would not have necessarily have and i've already met people who have tried vaping, liked it and then tried a cigarette.
Tied into the second argument is another reason that doesn't seem to have been aired, it will make smoking cool again. 
As e-cigarettes are allowed to be advertised on television, the companies are benefiting from hitting a wide audience and it is this, coupled with celebrity endorsements, that concern me.
Advertising works and if you can get a celebrity to help shift your product then more the better and something we do see now is celebrities endorsing e-cigarettes and newspapers pictures of celebrities vaping.
A quick Google search bring up pictures of Jenny McCarthy, Kate Moss, Simon Cowell, Katy Perry, Jack Nicholson Lindsey Lohan, Leonardo de Caprio, Paris Hilton, Sean Penn, Britney Spears, Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen, Robert Pattinson, Jimmy White, Tom Petty and even Alan Titchmarsh using e-cigarettes.
The UK's medicines regulatory body, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, have said that e-cigarettes could help save 57,000 British lives over the next decade and they are undoubtedly a great way to give up the much more dangerous tobacco cigarettes but i do have one concern over that they may make smoking cool again.
E-cigs do help people to reduce or quit cigarettes, i haven't had a real cigarette for almost 15 months since i took up vaping, but as well as helping smokers cut out a dangerous addiction, it also works from the other end as well and introduces non-smokers to the same dangerous addiction due to their 'safe' label.
The best course of action is to not smoke at all and e-cigarettes are great for smokers who are addicted to nicotine already but there should be the concern that the cool image and images of celebrities vaping will prove attractive to non-smokers and may even act as a gate-way to real cigarettes.

Another Skint Pensioner

Not surprising to hear that another OAP is on her uppers, times are hard and it is the elderly most at threat as the Government hack away at state handouts.
Luckily, this pensioner is also the Queen and she is down to her last million because running around the World waving at people isn't cheap and the £36m she gets from us just isn't enough to keep her to the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.
With a Conservative Government in power, the usual solution to a problem is to privatise it but that doesn't seem to be mentioned here so what can we do with an out of date institution that is a drain on our meagre resources?
Simples, pack her off to Australia or any other part of the Commonwealth.
I have never understood why she is the head of 53 other nations but the Australians, Canadians or Tongans never dip into their pockets to pay for the Royal family.
Instead of selling her off to the Americans or someone who are silly enough to like out Royals, let's pack her and her family off to members of the Commonwealth. Let her live there for a year at a time and let them pay for her.
It's only fair, we're all in it together, Ma'am and you will love Pakistan, North Waziristan is particularly lovely at this time of year.

Sochi Winter Olympics 2014

The Sochi Winter Olympics are almost upon us and i am looking forward to watching men and women hurl themselves off huge slopes and go speeding around an icy bend on little more than a tea tray.
Not to take anything away from the athletes performing these tasks, but whereas the Summer Olympics are about feats of endurance and years of preparation to run, throw and jump the highest, the Winter Olympics is more to do with who can slide the best using the force of gravity. Pick a winter sport about to be watched, and it will probably involve a slope and a slippery surface which means it doesn't really compare to it's Summer relation.
Team GB is expected to bring home at least three medals from Sochi, the higher end of our expectations is 7 medals which would beat our Britain's best ever tally of four medals in 1924.
Costing a reported £51bn and using 25,000 volunteers, it should be 17 days of watching athletes from 85 countries falling over because to be honest, that's what we really want to see. 

The Problems With Technology

There are some things from future technology that seem exciting until you think them through and you find yourself thinking that actually, it would be a nightmare.
Flying cars for example, sounds great in theory, soaring above the roads and houses but if it goes wrong, if the car suddenly stops or it stalls or you run out of petrol or get into a prang with another flying car, that's you plummeting to earth inside a tonne of metal and firemen pulling your scorched body from flaming heap of twisted car.
Another idea that sounds great but is already with us is the replicator, or the 3d Printer as it is called in the real world.
What could possibly go wrong with a machine that could build anything. Hungry? Print a meal. Cold? Print a blanket. Indigestion? Print a tablet.
It should be great, a world where anybody can have anything they want by just printing it.
The problem see may occur is that we wouldn't need anybody to make anything. Clothes, food, furniture, pills and even other 3d printers. The only people who would need a job are the people who provide the elements that go into 3d printers and even they would be out of a job if we could 3d print the elements required.  
Nobody would have a job and nobody would need one because anything we wanted, which we would have paid for in the old days, we can now just print.
Technology, not as good as we think and don't get me started on making robots more intelligent than us!

Gays To Blame For Flooding!!

For a political party that wants to be taking seriously, UKIP does have more than its fair share of complete nutters so this weeks UKIPs fruitcake David Silvester who is arguing to anyone mad enough to listen to him that the recent storms to hit Britain are God’s punishment for legalising gay marriage.
David Silvester claimed he had warned the Prime Minister that the legislation would result in 'disasters' and explained that the UK has been 'beset by storms since the passage of the new law on gay marriage because Cameron had acted arrogantly against the Gospel. The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.
Maybe i'm just not enough of a religious right wing nutjob to agree because blaming Cameron for the floods over him giving the nod to same sex marriage is a bit of a stretch and i'm usually all for using any excuse to smack him and his party around the head.
That UKIP statement where they state that the views expressed by this particular member is not those of the party, followed by the one that states someone has now left the Party are getting a good airing recently.

Act Of God?

Great pictures around of lightening striking the Christ The Redeemer statue in Brazil on Thursday evening.
Some of the more excitable amongst us have taken it as a sign from God along the lines of us all being sinners and we must repent and such other drivel.
Others, equally as excitable, see this is a bad omen for Brazil with the World Cup set to be staged there this year and all the controversy surrounding that event.
Personally i take it as a sign that if you stick a 38 metre statue on one of the highest points in Brazil, it will get struck by lightening during an electric storm.

Frank Carson And Linda Nolan Mystery Solved

Celebrity Big Brother is always a bit controversial and this year it is the argument between Linda Nolan and Jim Davidson who mischievously hinted at something improper that involved Frank Carson and Linda Nolan's husband.
Apparently The Sun newspaper has the exclusive but it will cost you to sign up to their Sun Plus to find out. 
Don't know why anyone would do that, the story is that in the mid 90's, Linda's husband and manager, Brian Hudson, was filmed taking money from Frank Carson's wallet while Linda was performing at the South Pier in Blackpool with the Irish comedian.
He was arrested, charged, pleaded guilty and was fined £200 so there you go, that saved you a pound.

That's A Shame

One of the more rare positive outcomes of the austerity cuts imposed by the coalition is the reduction in our defence budget.
We still spend tens of billions on maintaining our useless nuclear capability we will never use so we can pretend we are one of the big guys but our capability to start more dodgy wars has been diminished.
To anyone with a functioning brain cell that is a good thing so i'm guessing the former US defence secretary Robert Gates brain cell wasn't connecting properly because he has piped up to say that cuts in UK defence spending mean UK will no longer have full-spectrum capabilities.
"A smaller armed forces would mean the UK could no longer be a full-spectrum military partner to the US" he said.
You mean America won't let us tag along when they invade other oil-soaked countries and kill hundreds of thousands of their population and send drones in to blow up wedding parties?
How is there anything not to like in that sentence..erm, i mean damn. Guess we will just have to sit out the next wars then. Shame that.